


speak to me but not of fate (propinquity)

by myre



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Audio 011: Broken (Torchwood), Audio 031: The Vigil (Torchwood), Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Gen, Gwen Cooper & Ianto Jones Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, The Year That Never Was (Doctor Who)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:33:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28449228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myre/pseuds/myre
Summary: There are many ways to get to know another person. There are drunken revelations, guilt-laden confessions, and, sometimes, simple conversation.
Relationships: Gwen Cooper/Ianto Jones, Gwen Cooper/Owen Harper (past), Gwen Cooper/Rhys Williams, Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones (mentioned)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 18
Collections: Torchwood Fan Fests: 2020 Holiday Exchange





	speak to me but not of fate (propinquity)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gwendolyncooper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwendolyncooper/gifts).



The first time he told her about Yvonne Hartman was in Jack’s—no, _their_ —office. They were sitting together on the ground, drunk on the expensive whisky that Jack had kept there. She nudged the bottle away, nervous about accidentally knocking it over and causing a spill even though Ianto had assured her that the cork was firmly in place. She leaned her head back against the curve of the desk and looked to her right at Ianto. Her eyes drifted up to the decanter sitting on the desk above his head.

“Why aren’t we drinking that whiskey?”

Ianto blinked slowly and looked at her, confused, before following her gaze up to glass decanter glinting in the light, his head tilting back at an awkward angle.

“Lead.”

Gwen waited for him to continue, but it seemed like he felt like that was explanation enough.

“Lead…,” she prompted.

“-ed crystal.” He finished for her, dropping his head back into a more comfortable position. When Gwen made a noise, his eyes drifted slowly to her face and, upon seeing her expression, he sighed, as if put upon. She was about to admonish him when he continued. “That decanter was made before the 1970s. Too much lead in the whiskey.”

Gwen frowned, the information sinking very slowly into her whiskey-blurred mind, before squeaking when the sudden image of him pouring himself some whiskey and drinking it came to mind. “But you’ve drank from it before.”

“That was before I knew how old Jack was and that he couldn’t die. Didn’t think he’d be stupid enough to store whiskey in a lead crystal decanter, but I guess if you can’t die you also don’t have to worry about lead poisoning.” His tone had started to turn towards the bitter and Gwen cringed, remembering the guilt of being the only one to know that Jack couldn’t die. “Anyways, it’s probably fine once in a while… and as long as you’re not getting lead elsewhere. But we shouldn’t be getting _drunk_ on it.”

His gaze travelled slowly, tracing the contours of the office like some sort of alien ooze. Gwen stifled a giggle at the thought; Ianto probably wouldn’t appreciate being compared to alien ooze, or any ooze for that matter. _‘I would never be that disconcertingly… slimy_.’ She could already hear him saying it. Suddenly his hand was waving around her face; Gwen blinked, coming back to the present instead of imagining how offended by his own existence Ianto would be if he became a slime creature.

“Hand me the bottle.” She was about to say something about not getting too drunk—Ianto had already drank more than her—but then changed her mind. Wasn’t getting too drunk the point of their little meet up in their—no, _the_ —office anyways, late at night when Tosh and Owen had gone home with not a blip in sight on Tosh’s rift predictor program? Anyways, she thought as she reached for the bottle with an alcohol-heavy hand (or maybe the air was thicker, she thought idly, like golden syrup and suddenly she remembered a flash of early morning light, filtering through clean white curtains, a plate of crempogau, and the giddy excitement of smearing her face with golden syrup), they were only a bit over half way through the bottle, granted they were drinking fast (she could still hear an old instructor telling them that three drinks in an hour was more than enough to get most people drunk and they’d definitely had more than that).

She handed the bottle over and Ianto worked the cork out, a satisfying pop filling the silence. He poured a finger into the tumbler sitting near her hand between them and poured himself two. She picked up the heavy glass and was about to take a sip when suddenly, “Wait. These are Jack’s glasses—”

“Technically, they’re Torchwood’s,” Ianto interrupted. She would’ve shoved at him—he knew what she meant—and almost did except she didn’t trust herself to not overdo it and spill the whiskey on him. He definitely wouldn’t appreciate that.

“ _Right_. These are Torchwood’s glasses. Should I be worried about lead?” She stared at the amber liquid suspiciously.

“Not unless you decide to let the whiskey sit in there for a day and if you are, I’m afraid to inform you that I still plan on getting drunk, with or without you.” Ianto took a sip of the whiskey, as if to punctuate his statement.

“Drunker you mean.” Ianto looked at her sidelong and shrugged. ‘ _Semantics.’_

They sipped their drinks in silence, Gwen slouching further down and sliding forward on the floor.

“Yvonne was the one who introduced me to good whiskey.” Gwen blinked up at Ianto, confused for a moment before her mind managed to dredge up the knowledge that Yvonne meant Yvonne Hartman, former Director of Torchwood and, _god_ , she had the sudden thought that they were currently without a director. She definitely wasn’t, even though she led their missions. Leading missions was just a matter of recalling how her old bosses had delegated work (she wasn’t Jack; she couldn’t lead like Jack who didn’t have to delegate in the same way because he just _knew_ things, he could skip steps and rush in), but that didn’t mean she could be _director_ of anything, much less Torchwood. Her gaze slipped back to the glass in her hand and she took a hasty sip, and then another, her thoughts running away. _Maybe Ianto_. He hadn’t explicitly said he didn’t want to lead, but then again, his support of her taking the lead implied that he didn’t want to lead, but then again _again_ , he was doing the administrative work and fielding the calls and talking to those outside Torchwood and wasn’t that what direc-

“She was my boss,” Ianto interrupted her panicked thoughts.

Gwen frowned, her brain struggling to pick up the thread of the conversation after the spiral it had decided to go down. “Of course she was.”

“No, she was my _boss_.” Ianto let out a strangled giggle then, or maybe it was a hysterical laugh. Gwen looked the tumbler in his hand, then at hers, and made the decision to clumsily uncork the bottle with one hand and pour them both a little more whisky. Ianto sounded like he needed it and Gwen _knew_ she needed it if she didn’t want to start panicking again. She knew she was too drunk to think clearly, but not drunk enough to not care or not be able to think herself down a spiral. Ianto didn’t even look at the glass before bringing it back to his lips with a mumbled, “ _Cheers_.”

Suddenly, Ianto groaned, “I never told Jack.”

Gwen froze, not sure how Ianto had gone from announcing the factual statement that he, an employee of Torchwood, had been employed by Yvonne Hartman, the former Director of Torchwood, to whatever confession that he hadn’t made to Jack. About as cautiously as she was capable, especially when drunk, she asked, “Never told him what?”

“That Yvonne was my boss.” He looked down at her a little distraught, brow furrowed and lips turned down in a tight frown.

Gwen squinted at him even though squinting was not making her thoughts any clearer; in fact, she had absolutely no thoughts running through her head at Ianto’s pronouncement. “I’m sure he knew.”

“No, he didn’t,” he asserted emphatically. “I never told him.”

She didn’t understand what he was getting at, but Gwen reached up and over with the hand not holding her whisky to rub his shoulder comfortingly; Ianto was clearly bothered by whatever he thought he had failed to tell Jack. She missed and ended up patting his elbow awkwardly.

“I owe her my life. Good whiskey, suits, everything I know about aliens—” Ianto paused and made a small pained noise at the back of his throat before forcing himself to continue. “Lisa. All thanks to Yvonne.”

Gwen stared up at his sombre profile and shuddered, flashing back to seeing Rhys dead. She took a hurried gulp of her whiskey, wincing as it went down. “You do know that just because someone is your boss doesn’t mean that you owe your life to them… right, sweetheart?”

“But I do. And I owe my life to Jack now.”

“No, you don’t.”

“He should’ve retconned me. That’s what Yvonne would’ve done.”

“Jack’s not Yvonne Hartman.” Gwen shivered at the idea of Ianto being retconned. It had been disconcerting enough losing just the little bit she had lost when Jack retconned her. She wondered how much Ianto had to lose but was afraid to ask.

“No, Jack’s not. Maybe he would’ve executed me instead.” Ianto stated it like a fact and Gwen couldn’t even deny it. She wanted to, but she remembered Jack refusing to agree with her assertion that he wouldn’t have shot Ianto—or her, for that matter—remembered the rising panic and the desperation that she had barely kept at bay when she had pressed him on the matter. She remembered the rage, the disappointment, the anguish, at losing Jasmine.

Yes, Jack Harkness could have and would have executed Ianto Jones.

Gwen loved Jack, but sometimes he terrified her and sometimes he made her want to cry. She couldn’t truthfully disagree with Ianto, but she had to try anyways, because what kind of person loves someone who could execute another human being for loving too much. “He wouldn’t have.”

Ianto slanted a smile down at her and took a sip of his whiskey, without agreeing or disagreeing with her and she suppressed a shiver, remembering the rage and anguish she had felt when Rhys died and seeing it reflected in the eyes of the gaunt, despairing Ianto that lived in her mind. “I don’t know what you’ve heard about her from Jack or Owen or Tosh, but she wasn’t so bad, you know?”

Gwen didn’t. She hadn’t heard much about Yvonne Hartman, but she’d heard enough and she knew, now, what had happened at Canary Wharf. She marvelled at the idea that she had once believed that it had been a terrorist attack. She ached at remembering that Rhys still did _because she was lying to him_. To distract herself, she focused on the terrible, jagged little smile on Ianto’s face.

“Tell me about her?” She couldn’t deny being curious about what Ianto’s life had looked like before the fall of Torchwood One and she was probably more likely to get him to talk about work than his _life_. (One day, she was determined to get him to open up about his _life_ , but today wasn’t that day, not even with a decent amount of whiskey in both of them.)

And he did, telling her about Yvonne’s whiskey collection and how she had been (restrainedly) delighted when he revealed that he could count cards. He told her how she took her coffee (black, just like Jack) and how she remembered things about him, his favourite sandwich order at the shop closest to the office, the tea he drank when he was feeling down, and his mam’s birthday. Gwen vowed to herself that she would remember those things too.

* * *

The first time he told her about Yvonne Hartman was in the Himalayas. They were huddled together on the ground, Ianto’s arms tight around her shoulders as she shuddered and sobbed drily into his shoulder. When she could finally breathe without having her breath catch in an aborted, terrified howl, she noticed that Ianto was trembling minutely against her but when she pulled back to look at him, his face was set and hard; only the downward twitching of his lips gave anything away.

He looked down at her and his expression softened, just a little. Gwen rubbed at her eyes, suddenly feeling far away and hollow, and her gaze dropped down to the wet spot on Ianto’s jacket where her tears had soaked in. She didn’t understand how he could just sit there and hold her when she felt, alternatingly, like screaming fury into the sky and crying more tears into the dirt. She clenched her hands into fists in her lap, head falling so that all she saw were her dirty hands settled on her dirty jeans against the dirty ground.

Desperate for something to do with her hands, she reached up and tried to pull her hair down. The elastic was caught, however, and even though she tugged until it _hurt_ , the tangles in her hair wouldn’t let go. She let out a short, frustrated cry, nervous still about making too much noise, before dropping her hands from her hair which remained held up uncomfortably by an obstinate knot.

She nearly started to cry again when suddenly hands were gently pulling at the hair wrapped and knotted around the elastic. The elastic was dropped unceremoniously in her lap before Ianto’s hands returned to her hair, gently carding through the locks and untangling the strands. Gwen slumped forward, letting Ianto run his hands comfortingly through her newly tamed hair.

Determined not to start crying again, she decided to aim for distraction. “How did you learn to do that?”

She watched him shrug in her peripheral vision. “Cerys, my first girlfriend. She had really long hair.”

Under normal circumstances the teasing would have come naturally. ‘ _Oooh_ _young Ianto Jones, hair stylist to his girlfriend.’_ However, the words caught in her throat because now she had to remember just how _young_ Ianto really was. _Twenty-four_. She tried to cast her mind back to what she was doing at twenty-four and couldn’t remember, but she did know that she hadn’t been keeping a straight face while hiding from hostile aliens and not knowing if her friends were dead or alive. She wasn’t even doing that now.

She heaved a sigh, pressed her palms against her thighs, and took a fortifying breath before looking up to meet Ianto’s eyes. “We should figure out what to do.”

He made a small noise of agreement and nodded. “I think we should head back to Cardiff.”

“Is that wise? They know we’re Torchwood. Wouldn’t home be the first place they’d look and keep looking?”

“They could’ve sent us anywhere to get us out of the way long enough to kill us. They sent us here to keep us away from Cardiff in case we managed to escape them.” He looked down at her, grim but resolute, brow furrowed and lips turned down in a tight frown. “There’ll be no more flights, but there should still be trains. They can’t grind everything to a halt immediately, but we’ll need to move fast and eventually steal a car.”

Gwen watched, impressed and fascinated, as Ianto pulled a map out of his backpack. He managed to force a smile, “Never leave home without one.”

She helped him hold the edges of the map down, but felt a tad useless sitting on the ground as Ianto poured over the map, muttering under his breath about the fastest way to get to a train station by foot, and alternate train routes out of Nepal and back towards Wales. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve done this before.”

Ianto let out a short laugh, rough around the edges and soft, as if he couldn’t get enough breath. “Planned an escape by foot and train across thirteen countries while trying to escape terrifying metallic aliens that refuse to be shot down?”

He looked up at her with a straight face and Gwen thought, for a panicked moment, that he actually _had_ done that before. She was realising more and more that she had no idea what Ianto had done before he came to Cardiff. Sure, she had been leading the team out in the field, but Ianto was the one who had been keeping everyone else off their backs, at least until the Prime Minister had called and basically ordered them to Kathmandu, while also joining them out on the field and no twenty-four year old should be able to do that. Then his expression cracked, a wry smile spreading across his face. “Nope. But I did help overthrow a former Torchwood director.”

“What?” Gwen yelped, barely able to keep her voice down. They were pretty certain that it had been safe to stop and talk here, but she didn’t want to take any chances.

“Yeah, Rachel Allan. She was director for a bit in 2005.” He crinkled his nose then. “I dated her for while too.”

Gwen almost quipped that dating Jack made it a habit then, but while she and Ianto were friends, she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to tease him like that yet, not when the wounds created by Jack leaving were still so raw, for both of them, and not about something that could so easily be taken the wrong way. Tantalisingly, Ianto was opening up about his past and she didn’t want to cause him to clam right up again. “I’m going to assume that you broke up with her before you helped remove her from the position of director?”

“Would be weird if I hadn’t.” He dropped his eyes back to the map and absentmindedly traced a line with a fingertip. “So, it wouldn't be the first time I had to sneak around behind the back of an insane leader out to kill us all for their own ends.”

He sighed.

“Put Yvonne back in charge, though, and we know how that ended,” he finished darkly. He looked as if he were going to say more but then he shook his head and refocused on the map. “We’re somewhere around here. Hard to say exactly where without the GPS on our phones since we made a mad dash over, but I don’t think we could be anywhere else based on where we started.

“It’s too late to start walking now, but we should be able to get there”—he pointed at a dot on the map—“midday tomorrow. From there, we should be able to get a car that can get us to a train station. We’ll need to be careful while driving, since it’s more conspicuous, but right now I think we should prioritise speed.”

Gwen nodded; she didn’t have a better plan and didn’t trust herself to navigate them back to anyplace useful. Put her out in the field in Cardiff dealing with those damn insufferable Blowfish or a Weevil any day, but don’t ask her where they were right now because the only landmarks were trees and rocks. “Right. Guess we should turn in for the night then.”

It was after a disappointing dinner of protein bars that they had curled up together on the ground for warmth.

Ianto had fallen silent after a short ‘Goodnight,’ but Gwen could tell he hadn’t fallen asleep. She didn’t blame him; every time she even got close to relaxing enough to fall asleep, her mind would conjure up another horrible situation and all her thoughts would rise up just to fall into a panicked spiral about all the terrible things that could happen to them and all the awful things that already had. She wasn’t Owen. If either of them got hurt, the best she could do was wash the wound and wrap it up and she didn’t doubt that even with the best of Ianto’s planning they were going to get hurt. And she definitely wasn’t Tosh with all her technological expertise. Even if they got back to Cardiff, she didn’t think that either of them could jury rig something together to save the world even if they could figure out how it had all happened, if they could do that at all. 

Taking a deep shuddering breath, Gwen opened her eyes just a bit and scooted closer to Ianto, trying to leech some warmth off him. Back in Cardiff, Ianto had been becoming more receptive to the light touches that she habitually bestowed on him and he _had_ held her when they had first stopped here after making their escape, but a quick pat during the day or a hug after making it out of a slaughterhouse alive was different from holding someone in their sleep. So, she was surprised when, without a word, Ianto slung an arm around her and pulled her close.

Grateful, Gwen closed her eyes again and tried to let sleep take her, but sleep wouldn’t come.

Her mind wouldn’t let her forget the moment the spheres descended from the sky. She could still hear Tosh’s scream as if she were right next to her, Ianto yanking sharply on her arm to get her to _move_ , and Owen’s panicked cry of ‘ _Tosh!_ ’ even as Gwen had to turn away to keep from falling flat on her face. She was supposed to be leading them; she was supposed to be able to keep the team together and instead, she had lost two of her teammates in one day with no way of contacting them since she and Ianto had ditched their phones for fear they were being tracked. What were they going to do without Tosh and Owen? Gwen found herself wishing for a moment that she was with Owen or Tosh, who were probably the best equipped to _do something_. Then she felt a flush of relief that neither of them had to drag her around as dead weight, useless next to their expertise, followed by awful guilt at implying that Ianto wasn’t as valuable or useful as Tosh or Owen when he was the one who had got her out of this alive and was the one who had planned all their next steps. Her hands clenched into fists between her and Ianto, _god_ , she felt so-

“Stop thinking so loudly,” Ianto interrupted her panicked thoughts.

Gwen frowned, confused after being knocked out of the spiral of her thoughts. She cast her mind back and was disconcerted to note that Ianto hadn’t cried once. They were his friends too and yet he didn’t seem to be mourning. She was both jealous and angry all at once and shoved back from him a little bit. “How are you doing this? How can you _just_ _lay there_ when the planet has been invaded and our friends are probably dead?”

Gwen leaned her head back, her eyes seeking Ianto’s face. They were hidden in the shadow of a large tree, but the moonlight was bright enough that Gwen could still make out the jagged little smile on Ianto’s face.

“What else are we supposed to do?” If anyone else had said that in any other tone of voice, Gwen probably would have called them patronising, but she was struck by the yearning that undergirded that resignation in Ianto’s voice. She laid her hands flat against his chest and scooted close again.

“How do you go on?” The ‘How do _I_ go on?’ went unsaid.

“You go on when you have to; you find something that you keep living for and you swear to yourself that you can’t give up so long as that one thing remains.” His voice was firm but far away.

 _‘That’s not very helpful,’_ Gwen thought darkly, but didn’t say it because it would be cruel and she could tell that Ianto was telling her his truth.

They were silent for a long time and Gwen thought maybe Ianto really had fallen asleep this time, but then he sighed. “You know how things at London ended and I’m sure the others have told you about Yvonne, but—”

He heaved another sigh. Gwen squeezed her eyes shut at how laden Ianto sounded, wanting desperately to take some of the weight from him. “You don’t have to talk about it.”

The hand on her back started up a nervous pattern. Ianto _fidgeted_ , she had noticed back in the Hub (oh god, _the Hub_ ). “No— It’s— Just—”

He took a deep breath before continuing, “She wasn’t _just_ the things that the others have told you. They probably told you that she was power hungry, calculating, _a bitch_ , but she was also brilliant, even if she only ever used that brilliance to further the British Empire, and she did care even if she didn’t always show it or act on it.”

Ianto sighed, stilling his hand.

“I worked for her. Not just as a member of Torchwood. I worked _for_ her, as her personal assistant.” Gwen was surprised that she wasn’t more surprised at this revelation; it just made sense. It explained why he was so good at logistics. “I _liked_ her.

“And I watched her die. I wasn’t in the room with her, but I saw it happen.” Ianto was trembling again. “She was killed by her own hubris and she took nearly 800 of my coworkers with her.”

Gwen didn’t need Ianto to say it; they both knew what came next. _‘But I still had Lisa.’_

What was her Lisa? Rhys, Ianto, Jack, _the rest of the world_. And she vowed to remember that.

* * *

Ianto was the first person she told about her engagement. Not her parents, not Andy, not her friends outside Torchwood. No, she couldn’t tell them, but she needed to tell _somebody_ , so she told Ianto.

She announced it right as she walked in through the door, confident that they were alone in the Hub. Ianto was always here early and Gwen was here because she had needed to escape her flat. Ianto immediately made his way over to her, gifting her with one of his genuine smiles.

“Congratulations,” he said, warm. “Let me make us some coffee, then we’ll talk.”

Gwen watched him, wide-eyed, as headed off towards the coffee machine. She didn’t know what to make of his tone. He sounded sincere and he _looked_ sincere, but there was something else underneath the congratulations.

She lost track of time, caught up in her thoughts, and flinched when he handed her a cup of coffee, the metal of her engagement ring clacking against the ceramic. Ianto raised an eyebrow in question and she shrugged, a little helplessly, before taking a fortifying sip of coffee.

“So, how did he ask?”

“On his back.” Gwen snorted at the memory, trying to shake her unease off.

Another eyebrow raise preceded Ianto’s assessment. “Untraditional. Not sure about its implications.”

It took a second, but when she realised what he meant, Gwen almost blushed. She threw Ianto a scandalised look. “I think you’re spending too much time with Owen.”

Ianto just smiled demurely, letting the little stutter between ‘with’ and ‘Owen’ go. Grateful, Gwen continued, “He had a twinge in his back.”

“ _Right_.” He didn’t even flinch when Gwen flicked him on the shoulder.

“From getting down on one knee!” She huffed. Ianto could keep up with the worst of them.

“If that’s how you’re planning on telling the story.” He shrugged before smirking down at her. She rolled her eyes. “Well, let’s get a good look at it then.”

He reached out for her hand. Gwen frowned and almost didn’t give her hand over but tried to play it off with a laugh. “I didn’t take you for the type to care about karats and that kind of nonsense.”

Ianto just raised his damnable eyebrow again and took her hand gently in his, bringing it closer to his face. “I’m not, but I’m pretty sure that I’m supposed to pretend to care.”

He scrutinised it, sipping his coffee, before bringing her hand back to her mug. “It’s nice.”

Despite the growing lump of _something_ sitting in her chest, she laughed at the simple pronouncement. “You really need to work on your compliments. You know, something like, ‘Oh Gwen, it’s very elegant and practical. Don’t see it getting in the way when we’re in the field.’”

Ianto put on a long-suffering sigh and rolled his eyes, muttering something about damned if you do and damned if you don’t, before turning his attention back to his coffee, eyes slipping closed for a second at his next sip. She nearly scoffed; it was almost obscene how much pleasure Ianto got out of drinking coffee (though at least he wasn’t as vocal or demonstrative about it as Jack, who would frequently make quite a show out of moaning into his cup, had been). Then Ianto looked right at her, blue eyes shrewd, and she wished he took _more_ pleasure out of coffee. “Are you okay?”

He obviously wanted to ask a different question, but Ianto wasn’t the type to broach these kinds of conversations unless they were drunk on liquor and barely managed grief. Just this once, Gwen was grateful for Ianto’s emotional reticence.

Gwen hesitated, trying to bring herself to just get it all out in the open, but she could only manage a half truth, “Ring’s just a bit uncomfortable. I can’t stop thinking about it being there.”

Ianto’s gaze softened and he flicked his eyes down to the ring for a second before coming back to her face, “I hear that’s normal. You’ll get used to it soon enough. First time I wore a tie, I felt like I was being strangled all the time and now I feel naked without them.”

Gwen made a face, “I’ve seen you without a tie on, mister.”

“Good as naked then,” Ianto smirked. He squeezed her shoulder before heading down towards the Archives. “I’ve got some files to pull that might be helpful with figuring out what’s causing all those weird reports we’re getting from the police. I haven’t had the chance to check for any new reports that came in overnight, but if you could do that, we can put our heads together once I dig up those files.”

“Sounds perfect, love.” Gwen kept the smile firmly plastered on her face until Ianto was well out of sight and she was sure he wasn’t going to rush back all of a sudden to catch her with her guard down.

She spent the rest of the day acutely aware of the metal around her finger. It was as if it was burning her skin. She couldn’t stop fidgeting with it, even though she did try to keep it to a minimum in front of the others, and more than once was overcome with the urge to rip it off and fling it away from her, letting it get lost in the Hub.

But that wouldn’t solve anything.

Gwen thought she managed to look appropriately thrilled when Tosh returned with lunch and cake in the middle of the day. She couldn’t meet Owen’s eyes, but luckily he made himself pretty scarce the whole day. If she had less on her mind, she might’ve been worried about how subdued the doctor was, but as it was, she could only be grateful that she didn’t have to deal with the barbs she had been expecting.

Tosh offered to help her find the best date for a wedding that would minimise the chances of it becoming a very Torchwood wedding while also giving her enough low-activity days beforehand to take days off to prepare and days after to go on a honeymoon. “Unfortunately, I don't know how long the honeymoon can be since we’re short on hands, but I’m sure we can figure it out and we can give you the best chance of not having to cut the honeymoon short.”

Gwen had thanked her, ‘ _There’s no rush_ ,’ and gave her the night off, taking over the night shift since ‘ _I’d better start making up those hours now._ ’

With the Hub cleared out, Gwen leaned back in her chair with a sigh, fingers going immediately to the ring that had been on her mind the whole day. She’d give Rhys a call in a bit. She just needed a moment alone.

She hesitated, but she finally gave in and slid the ring off. She did, however, resist the urge to throw it away and instead placed it down firmly on her desk.

“You know you’re not going to get used to it being there if you take it off.” Gwen jerked upright and nearly slipped off her chair. She scrambled for the ring, but Ianto got to it before her, covering it with his hand and putting a coffee in her hands instead.

She tried to deflect, “What are you still doing here? I thought you’d already left. _Also_ , it’s your night off. You can’t overwork yourself.”

Ianto shrugged, not even looking a touch contrite.

“Go home, Ianto.” Gwen tried to be forceful, but the crack in her voice betrayed her.

He just shrugged again, keeping his palm pressed flat against the surface of her desk and her ring. He seemed to be struggling to find words to put to whatever it was he was thinking and usually Gwen might’ve helped him out or laughed, but she was certain she didn’t want to hear whatever it was that he was mulling over in that sharp mind of his. She thought she’d hidden it well, but now she knew without a doubt that her bouts of distress had not escaped Ianto’s notice and that those damned drunken nights in the office made him feel obligated to talk to her about it. Why he hadn’t just invited her up to have at least a few fingers of whiskey first was beyond her.

Finally, “Do you want to talk about it?”

This time Gwen did laugh, abrupt and involuntary, but even though her first instinct was to say no, she couldn’t force the refusal out. She settled for asking for her ring back.

Gwen watched Ianto hesitate for just a beat, but he was too polite to push it and not nearly comfortable enough to confront her. He slid his hand off the ring but didn’t otherwise make any moves to leave her in peace. Still, Gwen put down her untouched coffee and snatched the ring back up. She was halfway to shoving it back on her finger when she froze, unable to bring herself to do it.

She glared up at Ianto who only stared at her impassively, perched on the edge of her desk.

“Go home, Gwen.”

“No.” _I can’t_.

Ianto sighed. “You should be home with Rhys. You just got engaged.”

“He’ll understand that it’s the job,” Gwen asserted, not sounding half as confident as she hoped. The thing was, there were a lot of things she knew that Rhys would understand, but there were also things that he wouldn’t and this job and all the things that had come with it were some of those things (in part because she couldn’t tell him and in part because she had done something unforgivable).

“Go home. I know you haven’t called him yet, so just go home and tell him you’re sorry you’re late. I can watch the Rift tonight.”

Gwen sat silently, mulishly, before it suddenly burst out of her, “ _I can’t!_ ”

“You can’t…?”

“Go home, Ianto. God! I just can’t. And you can’t make me, you’re not—,” she snapped, before her brain caught up to her mouth. Horrified, she backtracked, “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that— God, I sound like a child.”

She pressed one hand to her mouth and the other clutched the ring in her lap. She dropped her head so she didn’t need to look at Ianto, but her head snapped back up when he spoke, so soft, she might’ve thought she was hearing things if she didn’t see his lips moving. “I was going to propose to Lisa. Got the ring and everything.”

Then, pained, “Still do.”

The ring dug into the skin of her palm. She didn’t deserve it. She didn’t deserve Rhys. She was being so selfish saying yes when Rhys had loved her so long and so well just for her to betray him. Tears began pricking at her eyes as she tried to imagine Lisa as she had been before the Cybermen had got her, tried to imagine the woman that Ianto had planned on marrying. She then compared herself to this imaginary version of a woman she helped kill and found herself lacking. Ianto had been willing to die for her; she could imagine Rhys making that same sacrifice. She didn’t deserve that kind of devotion.

She couldn’t keep it all in.

“I retconned Rhys.” And once the damn broke, she couldn’t stop the rest from tumbling out. “I told him about Owen—about sleeping with Owen. I begged him to forgive me, I wanted, _needed_ , him to tell me it was okay. But I had retconned him, so what would it have mattered anyways.

“I knew that what I was doing was wrong. I shouldn’t have slept with Owen. I shouldn’t have kept sleeping with him. And if I had wanted to tell Rhys, I shouldn’t have retconned him.” She was breathing like she had just chased a Weevil several blocks. “I don’t know why I did it. I don’t know why I did any of it anymore. None of it was worth it and I don’t know how to live with myself.”

Whatever she was expecting for Ianto to say, it wasn’t, “That doesn’t mean you throw away everything now.”

“But how am I supposed to promise to share my life with him when I’m keeping so many things from him? How—”

“Do you love him?” Ianto interrupted.

“Of course I do! How could you—”

“Then you have to decide if that’s enough.” Ianto was no longer looking at her as he spoke. “Everyone— We all feel things that we wish we didn’t. Sometimes we do things that we know are wrong and maybe we do them for the wrong reasons but sometimes we do what we have to do to survive the things that are happening to us.

“I don’t know how you told Rhys, but there are better and worse ways of admitting these things. Maybe you should try again.” He glanced sideways at her. “You’re not a bad person, Gwen. You’d only be a bad person if you didn’t feel bad about what you’ve done.”

He picked up the coffee and took a sip before standing up. He put the coffee down and pulled Gwen out of her chair to give her a stiff little hug. He tried to keep it short, but Gwen squeezed him to her, suddenly overwhelmed and unwilling to let go. Above her head, he murmured, “Go home, Gwen.”

So she did. It was time to go home.

* * *

Ianto was the first person she told about Andy’s death. Eventually they’d have to tell the others, but she couldn’t bear the idea of anyone else finding out first.

She didn’t cry as she told him how it happened. The tears had dried up after she had learned that Rhys had been killed while trying to ferry a lorryful of children and their parents to safety.

Now Andy, too, was gone, killed senselessly by one of the street gangs who had decided that they had no interest in letting Andy get away with the medical supplies he had managed to scavenge out of St. Helen’s. He would’ve shared with them, would’ve helped them get into one of the rooms previously thought to be blocked off; instead, they had killed him, and Gwen hadn’t been able to do anything. She had been too far off. She was probably lucky they hadn’t killed her too. Knowing these things didn’t help her feel any better or any less responsible.

They held each other, looking out at what was now the Hub from the vantage point of their room. Gwen remembered the times that Jack had watched the team from this spot.

There was a different team, of sorts, now. The days of secrecy were over. The Hub, lit with all manner of alien lamps, was full of people, of all ages, milling around and going about their day. Everyone knew about aliens, so there was no point in keeping Torchwood’s resources all to themselves and _someone_ had to watch the Rift. And luckily, while they had taken a lot of useful tech and most of the weapons, whoever had ransacked the place had been smart enough not to touch the Rift Manipulator.

Their quiet observation and mourning was interrupted when Tom called out for Ianto from below. “Can you come take a look at this?”

Ianto pulled away from her with a kiss to her temple; no words were needed between them now. When Gwen closed her eyes she could almost imagine him pressing a cup of coffee into her hands, something to warm and comfort her. But there was no more coffee. No more Rhys. No more Andy. No more Owen, Tosh, or Jack. All of them, taken from her.

Eventually, she followed Ianto down. She had work to do.

She tried to lose herself in everything that needed doing, but Gwen’s heart wasn’t in it. The news about Andy’s death had spread quickly through their Hub community and she almost couldn’t bear the grief permeating the air like smoke from a distant fire. They had all known Andy, had all lived and laughed with him, but he had been her friend first, her partner before her whole life had been turned upside down by Torchwood. They had a right to grieve too, god did she know that, but a part of her rebelled at the idea of sharing in their grief; it made her want to scream. 

Halfway through the afternoon, she nearly gave into the impulse to retreat to her room just to stop herself from running out of the Hub, but she had never been the type of person to run when things became uncomfortable. _‘Head up, Gwen Cooper.’_

The feeling would pass. Or so she told herself, even though she knew it was grief and grief had become a regular fixture in her heart.

“It’s been over half a year now and I still keep expecting you to be bringing around a coffee. That instant that Sue makes just doesn’t hit the spot,” Gwen joked half-heartedly as Ianto stepped into their room empty-handed. It was such a small thing in the grand scheme of all the people they’d lost but, sometimes, it was the thing she craved the most (next to just one more slice of Rhys’s lasagna or one more cheap glass of wine with Tosh or one more barbed insult that he didn’t really mean from Owen).

Ianto flashed her a smile, drily saying, “I nearly turned us around when I found out all the beans had been snatched up. Wales is good for many things, but not for growing coffee. Could’ve found ourselves a coffee farm by now.”

“Ianto Jones, coffee farmer,” Gwen shoved him lightly when he dropped onto her bed by her side. “Has a nice ring to it but I don’t think your valley boy blood is going to cut it.”

“I’m adaptable. Lived in London didn’t I?”

“Oh yeah, your stint in London, peak of living off the earth, that was.” This time it was Ianto doing the shoving.

And suddenly they were laughing so hard they couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t even that funny, but it was _something_. Doubled over, Gwen gasped sharply, trying to catch her breath. It had long since stopped feeling weird to be able to laugh despite the fresh pain of loss and grief; every chance to laugh had to be taken when the world was ending. She wheezed a little, “I’d bet on you in a gladiator fight before I bet on your ability to survive the sun. You’re too pale.”

There was an oddly long pause that Gwen had expected Ianto to fill with one of his signature quips.

“You know it’s not running away if it’s time to leave, right?” Gwen flinched, all laughter suddenly gone, at Ianto’s words. “If you have someplace to go, you can only get there by leaving.”

“What?” Gwen was a little alarmed at the idea of leaving. All day she’d been itching to get out, but now the thought of actually taking that step was terrifying. The Hub, Ianto, the small village they lived with, this was _home_.

“I’m not saying that we have to leave, but—” Ianto gently turned her so that he was facing her back. She felt him start undoing the braid that was holding her hair back. “There’s a tech stash in Hong Kong. We might be able to build a weapon out of what’s stored there.”

“Hong Kong? We’d be heading back the way we came.” In the quiet of their room, she could hear the susurration of Ianto’s fingers combing through her hair, creeping up with every twist undone.

“Torchwood had a branch there until it was shut down in 1992.” He massaged the base of her head, rubbing pleasantly at her scalp.

“How can you be sure the tech’s still there?” She reached up. Her fingers bumped against his as she helped undo the tight plaits at the top of her head.

“It was kept in a secret Torchwood vault; no one else is alive who’d know it’s there.” Ianto paused, then amended, “Except maybe Jack.”

Ianto leaned forward to catch her shoulders in an embrace. Instinctually, she leaned back and rested her hands against his forearms. “Saxon might have got into the Hub, but he wouldn’t have known that the vault wasn’t emptied when the Hong Kong branch was shut down. I only know because of some misplaced paper records I found in Yvonne’s office.”

“But the Rift isn’t going to watch itself. There’s still so much falling through.” The protest sounded weak even to her own ears.

“We can hand things over to Tom and Dru. There are plenty of people here, plenty of people with more engineering, tech, and medical knowledge than we have, who can watch the Rift and manage whatever it spits out at them. You’ve trained them so well, Gwen.”

“It just feels like I’m trying to run away because of one bad day,” Gwen turned so that she could tuck her head under Ianto’s chin. “I can’t just run away.”

“I don’t think that there’s anyone on this planet who could truthfully accuse you of being a coward, Gwen.” She didn’t have to look at Ianto to know just how earnest his statement was, but sometimes, a lot of the time, it wasn’t enough to believe that Ianto meant the things he said; his unwavering belief in her just wasn’t enough to overcome her self-doubt.

“Maybe this is the push we needed. We’ve been here for months, but just doing what we used to do back when Earth hadn’t been reduced to ruins isn’t going to help us get rid of Saxon. If we can get to Hong Kong and I’m right about what’s being kept there, I think I have some contacts that could help us put something together.” Ianto’s arms tightened around her shoulders.

Gwen let herself be held as she turned over Ianto’s logic in her head and pitted it against the beliefs she held in her heart. Finally, she decided to test out the answer she knew was correct even though it felt wrong, “Okay.”

And saying it, Gwen felt a sudden swell of resolve.

“Okay,” she said again, using it to steel herself. She straightened up and looked Ianto in the eyes. “Let’s do it.”

She was the one who broke the news while Ianto pulled Tom and Dru aside. For as long as they had been living in this large group, Ianto still shied away from big announcements or orders, still kept mostly to himself or Gwen or— Gwen stopped herself from finishing the thought to try to stave off a fresh wave of grief that came anyways.

The goodbyes were bittersweet, but as the night wore down, the surer Gwen became in their decision. For the first time since they had opened up the Hub, she felt galvanised. As she thought forward to what they were hoping to do, her heart caught up to her mind—the decision _felt_ right.

They woke early the next morning to pack, not that they had much to bring with them other than some key pieces of tech. They were almost done when Gwen caught Ianto’s wrist before he could pack away the straight razor he had appropriated from Jack’s private bathroom. “Cut my hair. And make it short.”

Ianto reached out to run his hand through her waist-length locks before nodding. Gwen was sure he understood why she needed this.

He carefully brushed out her waist-length hair (she hadn’t worn it this long since primary school) before he gently lopped off lock after lock. With her hair falling to the floor in chunks, Gwen told him about how her mother used to cut her hair when she was a little girl. She recalled one particularly disastrous attempt at fringe which had resulted in one section being so short it was barely there while the rest of it so long that it hung in her eyes. “I was mortified.”

Ianto laughed nervously, “I don’t think I can guarantee that this is going to turn out any better.”

Eventually, Ianto pressed a kiss to the top of her head, murmuring a soft ‘ _All done_.’ She turned and looked at herself, freshly shorn, in the mirror that Ianto had placed down on the floor for her. Around her, Ianto was sweeping up all the fallen hair (it would be rude to leave the room covered in hair for the next person moving in). When he was done, he helped her to her feet.

Gwen nodded and grabbed half their bags. “Let’s go.”

So they did. It was time to leave home.

* * *

“I’m a doctor!”

Ianto ignored Owen’s offended squawk. Owen was glaring at the side of Ianto’s face, upset that the other man didn’t even turn his head to acknowledge him as he continued amiably ‘pondering’ aloud to Gwen and Tosh who were sitting across from them. “We honestly might get better care if we hired a nurse. What exactly is Owen doing that he received training for in medical school that a nurse couldn’t also do?”

Gwen had to frown to counteract every instinct to laugh as Owen visibly bristled.

“Watch it, or I’m going to _accidentally_ leave you bleeding on the ground the next time you get injured in the field or, more likely, in your Archives because the boxes attack you again.”

They all knew that this was an empty threat.

Ianto continued on as if Owen hadn’t interrupted him, “I mean, sure he’s cutting open aliens, but Tosh _you’ve_ done alien autopsies and it’s not like xenobiology is taught in medical school. He cleans up scrapes and cuts, gives us stiches, and tells us when we have a concussion, all things that people without medical degrees know how to do.”

Gwen and Tosh looked at each other suppressing giggles as Owen’s expression continued to darken. Everyone at the table knew that Ianto was joking, but that didn’t stop Owen from rising to the bait.

“Fuck all of you.” Owen pushed away from the table, chair legs grinding against the floor with a horrific screech. He stomped out of the conference room and made sure to turn around to flip them all the bird before stroppily making his way down to the medbay.

The remaining three lasted all of two seconds before dissolving into laughter. Gwen clutched Tosh’s hand and said, “Oh, we definitely have to get him a coat embroidered with ‘Nurse Owen Harper’ for Christmas.”

“And steal his coat so if he wants a coat for his work, he has to wear it. Fake some sort of freezer malfunction so that he thinks he needs to move the _Pa’chlyvian_ into a new drawer and we know what happens when their temperature changes too rapidly.”

“That’s evil, Ianto!” But Tosh knew very well that she’d be helping him set up the prank.

Eventually they worked out all the giggles and they slumped back in their chairs, grinning at each other. Ianto glanced out at the rest of the Hub before sighing. “I guess we should actually discuss how we’re going to rearrange things and not just talk about the new signage for Nurse Owen Harper’s office.

“I think we should take out one of the walls in the office,” Ianto paused and all three of them sobered up a bit. They had pretty quickly managed to stop referring to it as _Jack’s_ office because it was uncomfortable all around, but no one would claim it, so it was just _the office_. “We spend enough time in there that we could do with more space instead of having to crowd around the desk every time.”

Gwen nodded, “Tosh, is there a reason why the bridge over there is removable?”

“No,” Tosh frowned at the floorplan. “Must’ve just been installed later.”

“Owen and I have had some trouble with pushing things across it, do you think a more permanent bridge would work?”

“Yeah, I think that could work, Ianto.” Tosh made a note on the floor plan. “And I think it makes sense to expand the floor behind the desks. Give us a little more room when we’re working on the same screens or when we need to manoeuvre larger things around them.”

“Perfect,” Gwen flashed a wide grin at Tosh. She was ever so grateful that they had Tosh. If it were just her and Ianto, they’d actually have to teach themselves engineering basics to figure out what was feasible.

“There’s also space for Owen’s desk closer to the medbay so he doesn’t have to keep moving back and forth so much, which means we can expand the kitchenette especially if we add a little extra space here, and we should definitely add support beams here, here, and here.” Tosh marked each beam with a quick square. “If we just want to add space and take down a wall, I should be able to direct the construction crew as long as we schedule the work during a quiet period for the Rift.”

“That would be great, Tosh.” Gwen reached over and took the hand that Tosh had been using to hold her tablet pen. The two women smiled at each other; Owen kept stomping out of their renovation meetings (it wasn’t usually due to Ianto needling him until he left in a huff; most of the time he left in a huff because “redecorating was for girls”) so he didn’t know that he was being ‘banished’ to the medbay permanently with Gwen taking his desk so that she and Tosh could sit together.

“And Tosh, if you take care of choosing a crew, I can get things set up so that we can get them in and out without them remembering a thing.” Gwen thought Ianto looked a little _too_ pleased at the prospect of his upcoming, bloodless clean up job, but she couldn’t begrudge him a job well done. He was very good at it after all, something that Gwen had come to rely on these past months. You’d think with Jack and all his flash gone, they’d be less conspicuous, but it turned out that with all of them stretched extra thin, things had got even sloppier on the secrecy front.

As if reading her mind, Tosh asked the question that Gwen was sure was on all their minds even if no one else would bring it up, “What do you think Jack would think of the changes?”

Gwen glanced up at Ianto, trying to gauge his reaction to Tosh’s timid question, but despite how close they had got, sometimes he could still be unreadable when he wanted to be. She settled on responding with, “Well, he’s not here to say anything about it so it doesn’t really matter.”

Gwen could tell that Tosh wanted to follow-up with something about Jack coming back, but Tosh wasn’t Owen; she had a lot more tact and tended to act on her sensitivity. “Yeah, I was just thinking.”

Then Ianto snorted, “If Jack were here, he’d tell us to forget about renovating and just move the whole Hub on top of the Millennium Centre.”

“His office would open up to the ledge so that he can do that thing where he stares at everyone from above while brooding on a rooftop at the same time,” Gwen added.

Tosh jumped in, “And it would save him the trip of bringing new employees up to the rooftop to give them his spiel with a view.”

The three of them rolled their eyes, but it was fond. It all seemed so special at first, being on a rooftop with Captain Jack Harkness, being shown the wonders of Torchwood (or in the case of Ianto, the responsibility and uniqueness of Torchwood Three), but then you found out that he did that with _everyone_ and that he also spent an ungodly time up there being a mopey, overdramatic bastard and the shine didn’t just wear off, the whole experience got a patina worth mocking.

“We could even give the spot a little sign: Jack Harkness’s Site for Brooding and Melodrama, Please Stand Here for the Standard Experience.” Ianto was smiling, but Gwen still reached her free hand over to take one of his hands and Tosh grabbed the other. They sat like that for a moment; it had been months, but Jack’s abandonment still stung. Then Ianto pulled back, retreating a little like he was still wont to do even though he wasn’t allowed to fade away anymore. “I’ll bring around some fresh coffees.”

Nighttime found Gwen and Ianto cloistered in ‘their spot’ at ‘their pub.’ These pub nights generally weren’t that regular and the ones that were just them were rarer still. Usually, if they needed to unwind, they just broke into the liquor stash that Ianto kept well stocked. Tosh joined them more often than not, even if she still tried to go back to work afterwards. (Owen, on the other hand, maintained that he wasn’t going to get drunk at work like a loser and that he was going to go out on the pull.)

They weren’t drunk, each only a couple pints in, but it was enough liquid courage for Gwen to break their companionable silence to ask Ianto about something that had been bothering her for months now. “Why didn’t you sit with Jack when he was dead?”

This managed to startle Ianto and Gwen would’ve been proud of that if she had managed it any other way. He narrowed his eyes at her and she was beginning to think that she should retract the question to prevent him from abandoning her in favour of his bed when he sighed and said, “You seemed to have it well in hand.”

“But you could’ve sat with him too.” He threw her an exasperated look and Gwen huffed, a little frustrated and now secure enough in her relationship with Ianto to plow ahead. “Or at least said goodbye. All of you thought he was dead but you just left him there.”

Ianto just stared down at his pint, clearly suppressing a response of some kind even if Gwen couldn’t make it out from the twitch of the corner of his lips. It wasn’t that she resented them for not sitting with Jack; people didn’t usually stay dead for multiple days and then come back to life. If she hadn’t watched him die more than once and come back, if Jack hadn’t told her in no uncertain terms that death was not permanent for him no matter what, she would’ve helped them tuck him into one of the cold storage drawers. And she had given up eventually too, hadn’t she? Still, this was something she was trying to understand or at least she wanted to understand _Ianto_ , who had clearly felt much more for Jack than any of them had noticed.

His next words were clearly carefully considered, “When were we supposed to do that?”

“What?” Of all the things he could’ve said, that wasn’t what Gwen was expecting.

“When were we supposed to say goodbye to Jack, Gwen?” His voice was low and steady, but Gwen felt anything but calmed by Ianto’s tone.

“Any time,” Gwen wasn’t sure what he was getting at, but she could try. “He was out for _days_.”

“But you were there the whole time.” Ianto looked up from his pint, eyes wide and pained, but mouth set in an almost accusatory frown.

 _Oh_. Suddenly Gwen got it. “God, Ianto, I’m sorry. I didn’t— If you had just said something— God, I’m sorry.”

Gwen pushed her pint away. She shouldn’t have asked. “I’m sorry. I didn’t _know_. I just— I was just afraid he’d wake up alone or, worse, in one of the drawers. I— God, I’m sorry. If I had known I would’ve—”

Ianto cut her off. “It’s fine. You didn’t know.”

“No, Ianto, I’m sorry. I didn’t think it through and I just _assumed_ and I shouldn’t have.”

“Stop.” Ianto seemed surprised at how sharply the word came out and heaved a sigh. “Sorry, just— You were probably right. If you had left him alone long enough for us to go say goodbye, we’d probably have planned it amongst ourselves so that the last person would lock him in a drawer and it would have been _awful_ for him to wake up in one of those.”

They both looked horrified at the thought and hurriedly took long pulls from their pints.

“Would you have gone to say goodbye if I had stepped away for a while?”

A pause. “Yeah. Yeah, I would’ve.”

“And did you feel bad about not saying goodbye?” Gwen already knew Ianto’s answer; he probably felt bad that despite all his grief, he hadn’t been able to muster up the words to ask her to give him the space he needed to grieve with Jack’s body alone. She wished more than anything that she had known that all Ianto needed was that space so that she could’ve given it to him even if she would’ve stood guard to make sure that Owen didn’t head in to lock Jack up (because she knew that despite Tosh and Ianto’s resignation, they wanted to believe her badly enough that they wouldn’t have been able to go through with it while Owen had his science and the front he put up).

“Yeah.”

“Then I’m still sorry.” Gwen sniffed, not surprised to find that somewhere along the way, she had begun to tear up. “I shouldn’t have just assumed that you would’ve asked for the space if you wanted it. I should’ve asked you, or Tosh, when you were bringing me food and water. I should’ve realised.”

“Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault, or at least it wasn’t all of your fault. I could’ve said something too, but I didn’t.” Ianto handed her a handkerchief and she couldn’t help but giggle at it. Of course Ianto would carry a handkerchief.

She dabbed at her eyes and gave Ianto a watery smile. “Could’ve avoided some grief if we’d just talked, couldn’t we?”

“Yep.” He still looked a little raw around the edges, but he returned her smile. “That’s the Torchwood way. Don’t say anything until it’s blown up in your face.”

Gwen frowned, “But it doesn’t have to be that way. Just because Jack is a cagey bastard who hates giving us information because he likes to be secretive and in control doesn’t mean the rest of us have to follow his lead.”

Ianto snorted at her description of Jack. “You’re right. Can’t guarantee you that I’m going to break the habit of a lifetime now though.”

“But you’ll try?” Gwen asked, hopeful. “And I’ll be better at asking instead of just assuming that if you don’t say something immediately that you’ve got nothing to say at all.”

It took a while and several more pulls of his pint, but eventually Ianto relented. “Okay. I’ll try.”.

“We’ll both try.” She took one of his condensation-damp hands in hers and squeezed. “Me and you, Ianto, we’re going to do better.”

* * *

“I’m a doctor!”

Gwen was relieved when she heard the yell break through the clamour of the group that had gathered. She quickly backed up to give this doctor space, pulling people with her, “Come on, don’t crowd!”

It had been an accident, a simple mechanical error. While almost everyone here was good at patching up minor injuries (you had to be if you wanted to survive an alien-assisted apocalypse), this settlement didn’t have a doctor. Shrapnel into the gut was beyond all of them, but they’d be damned if they weren’t going to try.

Later, when they had found a quiet spot to themselves, the doctor from earlier came up to them. “Mind if I sit with you?”

Ianto didn’t even react, occupying himself with heating up their dinner, so Gwen smiled warily, “Go ahead.”

“I’m Martha Jones,” she said. Gwen saw Ianto twitch in recognition out of the corner of her eye.

“Ianto Jones,” he responded, too polite not to. Gwen chimed in after, “And I’m Gwen. Gwen Cooper.”

“Oh, you’re Torchwood!”

This time, Ianto did look up. The two of them exchanged a glance before they both turned their gazes onto the woman in front of them who was smiling, tiredly, but smiling. Before Gwen could stop him, Ianto had responded with, “Says who?”

She reached out, ostensibly to take his hand, but really to pinch him by the base of his thumb. Honestly, for someone who could be so composed, sometimes Ianto forgot all tact. Ianto shot her a quick glare, daring her to say she could have come up with a better response than him. She couldn’t even glare back because Ianto was right, she probably wouldn’t have come up with a better response (though she was leaning towards a simple, “What?” herself).

They were tired and the world as they knew it had effectively ended. Gwen thought they were entitled to a little less conversational finesse. She rubbed the spot she’d pinched conciliatorily.

“Tosh and Owen told me so much about both of you.”

Gwen crushed Ianto’s hand in hers and he squeezed right back. _Tosh and Owen!_

“You know Tosh and Owen?” Gwen asked breathlessly.

“Where are they?” Ianto asked, equally eager for more information about their friends. When Tosh and Owen had failed to reappear months after that day in the Himalayas, they had assumed the worst.

Martha looked apologetic, “I’m not sure where they are now, sorry. But last I saw, Owen was in Turkey and Tosh was in New York City, but I don’t think either of them were planning on staying long.”

Gwen felt herself deflate a little; she had been hoping they would be nearby, but _still_ , they had survived the first Toclafane attack. That was something. “Were they— They were okay when you last saw them?”

“Oh yeah, they’re both _brilliant_!” Martha enthused, smiling fondly. She rummaged around in her rucksack and pulled out a small black device. “Tosh made me _this_ out of spare parts. It intercepts pretty much all kinds of communications and tells you if there are any transmitters nearby. Found quite a few eavesdroppers with it.

“And Owen taught me so much about practicing medicine in the field rather than in the classroom. Saved lives that I wouldn’t have been able to.” Gwen ached at hearing about her friends.

“I guess I don’t need to explain to you two who the Doctor is. Both Owen and Tosh knew about him.”

Ianto grunted his assent. They had quickly come to the conclusion that Jack had gone willingly with the Doctor and it had stung. These days, it was an old ache, one that had been pushed aside but not completely displaced by new hurts. Gwen pinched him again, causing him to snatch his hand back, before she added, “We’ve heard some stories. Travelled with some people who’d met you.”

“We heard that you were building a weapon,” Ianto offered as an apology.

But Martha shook her head, “That’s just a rumour I’ve been letting spread; the Doctor doesn’t like weapons.”

“So, there’s no plan then…?” Gwen ventured.

“There’s no weapon, but there is a plan. I’ve been telling stories about the Doctor so that people will _believe_ in him. If they do, he can defeat the Master.”

Gwen couldn’t help but be disappointed; this plan had all the hallmarks of a children’s Christmas story and if Torchwood had taught her anything, it was that you couldn’t rest on hopes and platitudes.

“And Jack—Jack Harkness—is he with the Doctor?” Ianto asked, finally bringing up the topic that had been hovering at the forefront of both their minds.

Gwen didn’t expect Martha to look so regretful as she nodded. “They’re both being held prisoner on the Valiant.”

Jack wasn’t supposed to be a prisoner. With all the stories they had heard, and knowing that Jack had been with the Doctor, they had hoped that it meant that Jack was going to pull something out of his arse and save the day like he’d often done. Now there was no Jack and no weapon. Gwen felt like all the air had been pulled from her lungs.

Gwen sucked in a breath, her mind suddenly flooding with images about what a maniacal being who enjoyed killing humans might do to a human with Jack’s unique abilities. Her mind recoiled; only despair lay down that path.

Instead, she chose to be angry.

To find out that the Doctor’s plan was to send one woman walking across the entire earth and that both the Doctor and Jack were being held prisoner—well, Gwen would have to be forgiven for not being filled with hope and optimism. As lovely as Martha was, she was also so human, _so mortal_ and _fragile_. They had watched so many strong, beautiful people like Martha _die_.

The anger crystalised into the knowledge that Torchwood would have to be Earth’s back up plan. If Martha failed, Torchwood would handle it their way, the Doctor’s preferences be damned.

Gwen glanced at how Ianto was taking the news and she wasn’t sure if she should be concerned or comforted by the polite expression on Ianto’s face. In Ianto Jones terms, that could mean that his inner landscape was almost in complete disrepair or that he was ecstatic with joy (not that there had been much occasion for that kind of celebration); the point being that Martha, despite knowing Tosh and Owen, was still a stranger and Ianto simply did not let things slip in front of strangers, not before the end of the world and especially not after.

He didn’t look like he was going to ask a follow up question though, so Gwen decided to steer the conversation away from Jack, “Well, if your plan’s going to work, I guess you should tell us about the Doctor then.”

Martha looked relieved and launched into her stories after entrusting them with the knowledge that Saxon was using a paradox machine. They had heard some of her stories before, but others were new, and despite her cynicism, Gwen found herself being drawn in.

Martha told them about meeting William Shakespeare, visiting New New York, and getting to see Stonehenge get built. It was fantastical, wonderful, beautiful, and Gwen found herself jealous of this other woman. She had seen some wondrous things with Torchwood, things beyond her imagination, but more often than not, these things were as awful as they were awesome. Still, she listened attentively; if she was going to die surrounded by the rubble of Earth, she wanted to go with the knowledge that there had been amazing things on this planet and to know that humanity would one day leave to go do awesome and awful things out in the vastness of space.

(Gwen had come to learn that time was a strange thing; paradox machine or no, Gwen wasn’t going to bet on being saved.)

Eventually the conversation veered towards Martha’s time travelling Earth. They compared their experiences on boats, the endless walking, and the all too necessary smuggling of supplies and human beings. Gwen found herself distracted from the conversation by Ianto. The longer the conversation wore on, the more concerned she got. Ianto was still keeping up his end of the conversation (she had caught an incredulous _‘Are we even talking about the same Owen Harper?’_ and ‘ _It’s never just hello with Jack.’_ ), but she could tell something was off. His quips seemed _brittle_.

“Travel with me.” Gwen blinked, refocusing on Martha, and realised that she had lost track of the conversation while considering Ianto.

“Sorry?”

“You and Ianto, you should travel with me, at least for a while. I could use the company.”

Gwen glanced at Ianto who gave her a minute shrug. Ever the planner, he asked, “Where are you headed?”

“I’m heading to Japan and then back to England.”

“We’ll think about it and let you know.” Ianto nodded back towards the main part of the settlement. “There are still plenty of people for you to tell your story to.”

Martha beamed at them and Gwen knew that they’d end up agreeing to travel with the woman. There was something magnetic about her and despite their misgivings, she inspired _something_ in Gwen the same way that Jack had once inspired her. They’d travel with her, they’d come to love her, and then they’d disappoint her by being exactly what her Doctor didn’t want them to be.

After Martha left them for the night, Ianto disappeared, or at least he seemed to. Gwen had only stepped away to relieve herself and when she got back to their campfire, he was no longer there. She knew he had to be nearby; he wouldn’t leave her, let alone without a word. 

It took some searching, but Gwen eventually found him at the outskirts of the settlement. He was sitting alone, hiding under an overhang to avoid detection from above, with his head down.

For the first time since this awful journey had started, Gwen saw Ianto overtaken by despair. For the past almost year, he had just _kept moving_ with her trekking faithfully by his side, two former Torchwood agents against the world. He had held it together for so long ( _held it together for Jack_ ). Gwen pressed her lips tightly together, throat suddenly aching with tears that she knew would not come, as she took in his slumped shoulders and the defeated curve of his body.

Eventually she had enough of watching him wallow and dropped onto the ground next to him.

“Go away,” Ianto grunted.

“ _No_.” Gwen reached an arm around his shoulders, but he shrugged her off, so she reached over and grabbed both his shoulders in her hands. She turned him so that he was facing her even if he refused to look up. “ _Ianto Seren Jones_ , you have survived so much. You never let any of that break you. Don’t let this be the thing that does.”

“Who said my past didn’t break me?” He laughed without humour. Gwen blinked, unsettled by how little his laugh resembled a laugh, the sound a wounded animal bleating in the night.

“I know you, Ianto. I _know_ you and I know that you can get through this.”

Ianto was silent for a beat then he looked up. Gwen started backwards, letting go of his shoulders, at the look in Ianto’s eyes and the cruel smile on his face.

“What do you know about me, Gwen? Did you know that I almost swallowed a whole bottle of pills after Lisa and after the cannibals? Did you know that I probably killed Jack after he sent Mary into the sun?” His voice was steadily rising and Gwen couldn’t find the words to tell him to stop. “Did you know I slept with him that night? Poor, pathetic Ianto Jones so desperate that he’d throw himself at his boss, the man who killed the woman who was supposed to be his fiancée. I still have the ring, I still—”

He broke off with a choked sob and his face crumpled. Gwen reached out as his shoulders began to shake. She ran a hand through his hair and down his back. “It’s okay, love, it’s okay.”

He just cried, finally, tipping forward until he was half in her lap, and she just held him.

When Ianto’s sobs subsided into short compulsive gasps interspersed with shallow, quiet breaths, Gwen manoeuvred him onto his back, pillowing his head in her lap. She stroked his forehead, gently brushed fingertips over his closed eyes.

“I need you with me, Ianto.” Her voice was steady even though she was terrified—of losing Ianto, dying (even though she was ready to die for this planet), failing to save the world. Ianto’s body spasmed with another gasp in response and he kept his eyes squeezed closed. “Me and you, Ianto, we’re going to keep fighting to save the world.”

* * *

“The screams never leave you,” Tosh murmured against her hair. Gwen pressed her face harder against Ianto’s shoulder. “ _But_ , that doesn’t mean this was your fault or that you should feel guilty.”

Gwen wanted to protest, but she couldn’t find the breath. Tosh rubbed Gwen’s back gently before sitting up. “I’m going to make us some tea.”

With Tosh’s weight gone, the bed tipped Gwen more firmly onto Ianto, who simply rearranged her limbs to his liking before holding her firmly to his chest and stroking her hair. They lay there, listening to the sounds of Tosh making tea in her kitchen.

When Tosh came back into her bedroom, she was clutching three mugs of tea precariously in her hands. Ianto gently helped Gwen up, propping her against a pillow, before reaching out to remove the burn hazards from Tosh. Gwen watched them and sniffled, “Sorry about interrupting your movie night.”

Ianto glanced out the window where the sun still hung in the sky and joked, placidly, “Don’t think it’s quite night yet.”

Tosh smacked Ianto on the shoulder before turning to smile at Gwen softly. “Nothing to be sorry about; we’re both glad you’re here.”

She pressed a mug into Gwen’s hands before climbing into the bed next to her and reaching out to Ianto for her own mug. Gwen let the warmth seep into her hands, trying to relax back into the pillow. She tried to push the image of the little girl, _Megan_ , being taken away on an ambulance out of her mind, tried to remind herself that the doctors had said Megan would be fine. But she wouldn’t be fine; Gwen knew that no amount of Retcon was going to take away the pain of losing her mother even if she no longer remembered it. Gwen couldn’t stop trying to figure out all the ways she could’ve made different decisions, done better. Tosh and Ianto kept telling her that she had done well, that it could’ve been so much worse, but she just couldn’t believe them. A girl had lost her mother today and it was her fault.

She didn’t even realise that she had started crying again until Tosh took the mug out of her hands.

“Gwen—”

“No, stop. It was my fault.” She looked at Tosh defiantly then swung her head over to preempt Ianto from attempting to interrupt. “I told you that we could do it without Owen and forced us to get going instead of waiting for him to get in. If we’d just had Owen—”

“We’d still probably have lost Megan’s mother and maybe we would’ve lost Megan too,” Tosh cut in.

“But if Owen had been there—”

“Owen’s a good doctor but he’s not a miracle worker. And we would’ve got there later if we had waited for Owen and who knows what kind of damage would’ve been done without us there.” This time it was Ianto who cut her off.

“But—”

“No, Gwen, there are a million things that could’ve gone differently. You have to stop trying to pin this all on yourself,” Tosh said, firmly but gently. Gwen tried to stare her down but found that she couldn’t hold Tosh’s earnest gaze. Tosh clutched her mug, Ianto rubbed Gwen’s knee, and Gwen clutched her fingers in her lap as she tried to stem the silent tears. They sat like that for a while, each unsure how to proceed.

It was Tosh who broke the silence, as if coming to a decision. “We had a coworker, Sebastian. He worked with us before you joined.”

“He was _English_ in the worst way,” Ianto muttered darkly. “All honour and empire. The type that thinks that everyone who isn’t English is some sort of godless heathen who needs conquering.”

Tosh grimaced, “His mother was like that too.”

“Thought he was better than us because of who his family was and because he went to Eton and Cambridge.” Tosh reached over and patted Ianto’s knee gently. There was clearly some history there; Gwen could only hazard a guess at what someone like Sebastian had said about Ianto’s State School education and lack of a university degree.

“He was a product of his family.” Gwen watched Ianto scowl at Tosh’s assessment and she could imagine why. “His mum almost seemed excited that he had died, not because she wanted him dead, but because she’d get to mourn him. Kept telling me that’s what women do: grieve.”

Gwen found the idea of being excited to grieve entirely foreign and was horrified that she was forcing Rhys to live a life where he was likely to have to grieve for her choices. Some of what she was thinking must have shown on her face because Ianto tugged her down against him and Gwen heard Tosh set down her mug before the other woman curled up against her back.

“We had been working together to contain the cortex leeches that had been coming through the Rift.”

“ _You_ were working to contain the leeches. Sebastian was just fantasizing about shooting them.” Ianto interjected.

Gwen felt Tosh shrug, “He believed that the only _useful_ type of person was the person who was ready to kill and be killed for Torchwood.”

Gwen shuddered. She wasn’t sure if she was ready; no, she _knew_ she wasn’t ready.

“I should’ve known better. I had been studying the cortex leeches and I _knew_ how they worked, but I broke protocol and took his body to his family anyways.” Tosh sounded so weary and small at that moment. “The leech used him to kill three innocent people and a dog because of me.”

“I knew how to stop it from using him. Instead, I set a leech loose. If the estate hadn’t been so isolated, so many more people could’ve died because of what I did.”

“If he had listened to you, he wouldn’t have died,” Ianto said.

“Yes, but if I had listened to him, the leech wouldn’t have been able to take over his body.” Tosh replied. They both fell silent.

Gwen felt herself floating away in the silence, feeling the rise and fall of Ianto breathing and the comforting warmth of Tosh pressed up behind her. The guilt still felt like a vice around her heart but having Ianto and Tosh meant she didn’t have to bear it alone. She suddenly realised that she was exhausted. Distantly, she heard Tosh pick up the story again, “Sometimes when the wrong smell hits me just right, I still hear him screaming. I’m back in the sewers realising that the kit is incomplete. I don’t have the brain stem isolator. We left it behind.”

Ianto shifted so that he could stretch his arm around both of them. Tosh, who kept speaking into Gwen’s back, was shaking now. “If I had just made sure that the whole kit was together all the time or if I had just doublechecked the kit before running after him instead of trying to check the log, maybe— But I was so busy with the stats.”

Gwen must’ve dozed off because when she came to, it was dark outside, the only light in the room coming from the bedside lamp. It still felt like someone had scooped out a bit of her heart, but somehow, newly awake and in the half-dark, it didn’t seem so unbearable.

“Feeling better?” Gwen lifted her head from Ianto’s chest. She flushed when she noticed that she had drooled on his shirt.

“Yeah. A bit. Sorry about your shirt.”

“Hmm?” Ianto looked down, shrugged, and then said, with a wink, “My dry cleaner never asks any questions.”

Gwen giggled and rubbed at her eyes, not caring about her makeup which had already been ruined by her tears. It was then that she noticed the book that he had been reading. “North & South, Ianto? I would’ve thought you read James Bond and the like.”

Ianto scoffed, “I _do_ read James Bond, but sometimes one wants a bit of lighter fare.”

“Oh, so this isn’t about Richard Armitage being incredibly attractive, then? You seem to have quite the thing for men who aren’t Welsh. I’m starting to think you’re ashamed of your countrymen.” She rose up on her knees and crossed her arms, mock glaring.

Ianto scowled at her, embarrassed, and shoved her lightly so she landed back on the bed with a thump. “Well, not all of us have found a proper nice Welshman who’s happy to cook us spag bol and fish pie on the regular.

“But,” Ianto continued. “If you’re really invested in my dating Welsh, I wouldn’t mind taking Rhys off your hands.”

Gwen mimed a gag at the leer that Ianto had plastered on his face, a scarily good impression of Jack on his worst days, and swatted him on the shoulder. “That’s my fiancé you’re talking about!”

“Doesn’t have to be.” Ianto smirked. Gwen shoved Ianto back, grabbed a pillow and thumped him on the chest with it.

“You can’t have him, _but_ I’d be happy to set you up with one of his mates.”

“Absolutely not,” Ianto said primly, turning his nose up. “I refuse to date the likes of someone who calls themself Banana Boat and Mervyn sounds a bit of a daft git by your telling.”

Gwen looked ready to speak, but Ianto interrupted her, “And if you say that it’s my loss, you are a _liar_.”

They stared at each other and then both broke down giggling, Gwen slumping over onto the pillow she was holding against Ianto. Eventually, Ianto pushed them both up and nudged her off the bed. “Go get cleaned up. Tosh has been slaving away on dinner while you’ve been using me as a pillow, so we better go be appropriately appreciative. And maybe if you’re nice to me for the whole meal, we’ll let you choose the film we watch.”

Gwen flipped the two-finger salute and dodged the pillow that Ianto threw at her with a laughing shriek. She stumbled towards the loo with Ianto calling after her, “Careful, if you keep that up, you’re going to end up like Owen!”

In the loo, she looked at herself in the mirror and found that, despite everything that had happened, she was smiling.

Some of Tosh’s words, which must have sunk in despite her not being completely awake, came back to her, “Moving on isn’t about forgetting. It’s about remembering. It’s about taking the awful things that happen to us, that we do, and making something better or braver or more beautiful out of them.”

* * *

“The screams never leave you,” Ianto murmured against her hair. She shuddered, knowing that he was speaking about more than just the world around them. She wished she could just _cry_ , but no matter how much she tried to force the lump in her chest to break free, her eyes remained dry. She pressed her face harder against his shoulder and felt his arms tighten around her. She shivered helplessly and tried to let herself be soothed by the meaningless whispers being pressed against her scalp. She still remembered the slick feeling of Eddie’s blood on her hands, but there was so much more now. Heartbrokenly, she thought about what Ianto had been dealing with at the time, thought about what he had had to deal with afterwards and how, despite her best intentions, she hadn’t been there for him. She had had Tosh to comfort her, Jack to hug her, and Rhys to hold her after Eddie. What had Ianto got after he had lived through hundreds of his coworkers being slaughtered? Taking care of Lisa and the rest of the team, everyone assuming that he was fine when no one could be expected to be fine after what he’d seen. Whenever she remembered this, she _hated_ Jack.

But they had been through this before, hiding in the shadows trying to sleep while the sun hung high overhead. He had forgiven her a thousand times over, told her it wasn’t her fault, as she had murmured sorries against his neck. She had forgiven him a thousand times over, told him she didn’t blame him, as he had gasped shuddery apologies into her hair, everything he had ever felt guilty for spilling out of him as they faced the end of the world and what was likely to be a suicide mission.

For both of them, the whirring blades of a cyberconversion table had never felt closer or farther away.

She felt one of Ianto’s hands slide soothingly up her back to rest against her neck, gently cradling the base of her head. She felt the calluses on his palms and fingers that had become more and more pronounced as they had picked their way through the wasteland against her scalp. She shivered again, trying not to remember the way Rhys used to hold her when she cried, trying not to remember the feeling of him pressed close, an arm around her waist, lips on her temple, kind eyes and kinder smile filling her vision and giving her something to move forward towards.

These days, in the quiet, when they stopped moving and there was no flush of action to keep the other feelings at bay, her chest was filled with grief and guilt, intertwined so thick and tight it felt like her whole chest was a tangle of roots, stranglers feeding off her heart. It felt like one day soon they would be all that was left of her.

The words suddenly tumbled out of her, “I retconned Rhys.”

Gwen could imagine Ianto’s reaction, that slow blink he sometimes gave, catlike and considering. She wasn’t sure if she expected him to hate her (she knew how he felt about Retcon, a little terrified and a lot angry at the idea of forgetting Lisa, Yvonne, and everyone who died at, and those who lived through, Canary Wharf), but she was relieved when Ianto only squeezed her tighter to his chest and simply said, “Okay.”

“I had told him about Owen—about sleeping with Owen.” Her breath hitched and for a second she thought she’d finally get to cry, but no, her eyes stayed stubbornly dry. “I felt so bad, everything was just building up inside me and I just needed to tell him, something, _anything_ , after keeping it all inside for so long and the longer I didn’t tell him about my life, about all the things I was doing and seeing, the harder it was to say anything at all. I wanted, I _needed_ him to tell me it was okay, to forgive me even though I didn’t deserve it. And then I retconned him.”

She remembered feeling herself slipping away; she had watched herself drifting as if she wasn’t in her own body or living her own life, and she hadn’t been able to do anything about it.

Back in the awful present, she had hoped that at least saying it would make her feel better, but, as with most things she hoped for these days, it wasn’t to be. At least, now, she felt there was nothing left between her and Ianto, no sins left to hold them apart at the end of the world.

There had been other times that she had wanted to tell him as they had got closer and closer ( _tangled_ ) after they had escaped the Himalayas, but something had always stopped her despite all the other things she had confessed and shared with Ianto, little things and big things to remind them both that they were more than just shells of flesh picking their way across the ruins of humanity. Then, after finding out that Rhys was dead, it seemed wrong to drag the whole affair into the light, guilt and grief hanging like a spectre over her heart; the words eventually turned to lead, too heavy to be pulled out of the pit of her stomach.

“I forgive you.” Gwen jerked in Ianto’s arms at his words. She wanted to scream, _‘There’s nothing for you to forgive! You’re not the one who can forgive!’_ Ianto, feeling the tension in her body, the fight, just crushed her close, one arm around her waist, the other around her shoulders. “You’re forgiven, Gwen Cooper.”

If she could have pulled back, she might have beat his chest with her fists.

“Sometimes, when I kept Lisa company at night and didn’t go back to my flat, I’d think about telling Jack. I wanted, _so badly_ , to tell Jack, but I was too scared to tell him.”

 _‘It’s not the same_ ,’ she wanted to yell.

“There are things we can’t change. Things that we will never stop feeling guilty about; things that we should never stop feeling guilty about, but that doesn’t mean it has to be the only thing we feel. It doesn’t make trying to be better meaningless.”

But she had lost her chance, lost her chance to be better for Rhys. She let Ianto hold her anyways; she didn’t feel strong enough to try without him too.

In the silence, Gwen knew that Ianto understood; she knew that he understood the grief and the guilt. She had listened to him whisper, strangled and ashamed and _in love_ , about seeking out Jack’s warmth, his smiles and easy flirtation, even while Lisa lay cold and in pain in the basement. He had confessed to wanting something simple, something that made sense when nothing else did. _‘I think I was already halfway to falling in love and it felt like absolute madness.’_ He hadn’t cried when he told her, though his eyes had been bright, glistening; he had long made his peace with what he had done. She remembered with blinding clarity him telling her that he remembered knowing that what he was doing was wrong, betraying both Jack and Lisa, but being unable to stop because it was the only thing keeping him from falling apart under everything that Torchwood had inflicted on him; she remembered feeling every word he had spoken that night like the echo of a knife to the heart, remembered wanting so badly to confess in that moment but being unable to.

But at least here, where nothing else made sense, they understood each other. Understanding wasn’t absolution, but it was close enough.

If asked, neither of them could say who had moved first. It was unimportant, to them and to the universe.

Gwen kept her eyes open, not seeking the artificial darkness that lay behind her eyelids and the chance of pretending that this was something that it was not. She didn’t want to pretend that there wasn’t grit and rubble pressing into her shoulder blades through her shirt, sunlight streaming into the ruins of the building they were hiding in, or dust floating around them, perversely reminding Gwen of being a child and running her hand through beams of sunlight to make the dust dance. She wasn’t allowed to forget that she was here, here _with_ _Ianto_. She gazed up at him whenever his face hovered over hers as he pressed tender kisses to her cheekbones and nuzzled their noses together. He ran reverent, painfully gentle hands down her sides, the fabric of her shirt rasping too loud under his palms as the noise of the world fell away, before settling his weight down against her, comforting and warm.

In turn she brushed his eyelids with her thumbs whenever his eyes slid closed, ran her fingers through hair that she had been surprised to learn was wavy when allowed to grow out, and felt down the pronounced nubs of his spine until her hands rested on his hips, her hands feeling small as she clutched at the knife’s edge curve and dip of the bone pressing against skin.

She gasped and then pressed her lips to a too gaunt shoulder to muffle a cry when one of Ianto’s hands deftly undid the button of her jeans and tugged the zip down so that he could slip his hand into her pants, the calloused friction too much until his fingers found and spread the wetness she’d be ashamed of if not for the screaming still echoing in her mind, the grief tight in her chest, the rush of tenderness that loosened her shoulders when Ianto eyes fluttered closed just for a second, and the hard line of his cock pressed against her thigh. Ianto pulled back and shuffled to his knees, freeing the arm that had been supporting his weight so that he could help her lay her head back down gently. She blinked up at him and was surprised to find that she had started crying. It was the first time in a long time that the tears had been able to escape. She thought they had dried up, shoved down and inconvenient.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, voice low and rough. She nodded shakily, tears still rolling down her cheeks, and pulled him down for a sweet, slow kiss. When they parted for air, she was still crying, but for the first time in a long time, there was a sense of almost lightness in her chest as she pressed another quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. She pulled him closer still when he slid a finger in her, slow and gentle, before beginning to thrust shallowly. Turning Ianto’s head sideways to rest his cheek against hers, she pressed her nose behind his ear and breathed.

Eventually Ianto pulled back to give himself more space to work, but with every fat tear that welled up in her eyes before rolling down her cheeks, he’d duck his head to kiss them away. She whimpered, as quiet as could be, when Ianto’s hand trailed a whisper soft trail down her neck, tracing a path down her chest and navel before creeping up her shirt. She arched her back to allow his hand under her, head lifting and thudding down just as quickly when he simultaneously undid the clasps on her bra and crooked his finger just so.

She panted, sweat breaking out across her forehead and prickling along her shoulder blades, as Ianto pressed a second finger into her and pressed his thumb to her clit. She could barely do anything other than shudder and cling to Ianto’s shoulders as she felt the tension in her body inexorably and quickly climbing towards a peak that her body had forgotten. Ianto was looking down at her with wide, adoring eyes, the expression on his face careworn and frayed along the edges with sadness. She felt loved and it was with that knowledge etched deeply into her heart that she came around Ianto’s fingers with an aborted cry, body taut as she arched into the warm hand firmly massaging one of her breasts.

When the throbbing crest of pleasure gave way to something softer, she slumped back to the ground, arms dropping to her sides. The fingers inside her stilled, but Ianto continued to run his thumb in a gentle circle around her nipple. She sighed at the sensation, not quite arousing, yet, but also not quite relaxing. She let her eyes slide closed for just a moment, only moving to turn her head to give Ianto better access to her neck when he nudged at her jaw with his nose. She didn’t doze off; she just let herself enjoy the feeling of floating after spending so long having to be grounded.

When she opened her eyes again, she realised they were dry and she smiled. The grief wasn’t gone and neither was the guilt, but it didn’t feel like it was going to kill her. Ianto was still mouthing lazily at her neck, hunched over. She turned her head straight again, dislodging Ianto from his task. He met her smile with one of his own. She reached up to cup his cheeks before glancing down at his hand which was still cupping her gently. She giggled, the sound coming out wet with the phlegm still in her throat, and teased, “Isn’t your shoulder sore from staying in that position?”

He shrugged the opposite shoulder before smirking, soft and wry, “Not nearly as much of a stretch with you as it is with Jack.”

In another life maybe they would’ve been trading stories about their respective lovers and she felt her heart pang with the thought of Rhys, but that wasn’t the life they had so Gwen could only be glad that Ianto was able to share this tidbit with her without pain. She tweaked his right ear, _cheeky_ , and wiggled underneath him. Ianto responded by crooking his fingers in her, making her let out a soft whine.

She grinned up at him before suddenly bursting into movement. She pushed her jeans and pants down before sitting up and rising off his fingers. She shoved Ianto down onto his back and then scrambled to her feet just to quickly pull her jeans and pants the rest of the way off. She laid them close by and kept her shirt and bra on just in case. Then she dropped onto her knees, straddling Ianto who had just been watching her with that secret beautiful little smile of his that she had come to love on the rare occasion that it snuck out at the end of the world.

He lay there, smiling the whole time, as she stroked his cock through his jeans with one hand, massaging the hard line with her fingertips, and explored the rest of his body with the other. She settled her weight onto his thighs, enjoying the rough texture of denim against her sensitive skin. She watched, fascinated and fond, as Ianto’s breath eventually quickened and his mouth fell open, soft with pleasure. She leaned down to kiss his bottom lip gently and his chin, feeling his lips curl back into a smile against her nose. His hands ran up and down her thighs before coming to rest against her arse, fingers spread wide.

Eventually, Ianto grunted and lifted a hand from her arse to catch her wrist, stilling her hand against his groin. “Best not get too messy in my clothes since both laundry opportunities and replacements are hard to come by.”

“Ever practical, you are,” she laughed, but obliged by undoing his jeans for him and helping him shove his jeans and pants down in the same go. She’d have teased him about the wet spot his pants sported, but he was already pulling her forward and she had to quickly lift her knees to avoid scraping them across loose gravel. In position, she ground down against him, both of them barely managing to suppress loud moans, as she slid, slick and warm, against the hot length of his cock. For a while that’s what they did, their harsh breathing filling the half-demolished room. Gwen bit her lip as she dragged her clit against Ianto’s cockhead and got to learn that Ianto did the same when she shoved his shirt up enough so that she could tease his nipples just as he was teasing hers.

She was so close, but simple friction was no longer enough. She caught Ianto’s gaze, widening her eyes in a question; he nodded and dropped his hands down to her hips, rubbing encouraging circles into her skin as she rose up and took his heavy cock in hand. They didn’t break eye contact as she slowly sank down, taking her time after not having done this in so long. When she finally settled all her weight backwards, they both sighed and held still, breathing, _feeling_.

Eventually the stillness had to break. Their hands roamed freely and they moved in tandem, meeting each other, connecting.

They kept their eyes open, memorising the exact shade of the other’s eyes, the turn of a nose, and the curve of an ear. They held every stifled moan close, clung to every tremble, and treasured every exquisite moment of pleasure.

This wasn’t about forgetting. This was about remembering. This was about making something beautiful so that even if they were captured and killed tomorrow, their cells and the universe would remember them as capable of loving and being loved.

* * *

When Gwen turned and saw Jack, she felt her chest clench and her throat close up, choking on all the things she knew and all the things he didn’t. Then the feeling, almost like guilt, passed, leaving only clarity behind.

Things shared once could be shared again.

**Author's Note:**

> Just two Torchwood agents who would sacrifice the whole world for those that they love against the end of the world. 💜
> 
> Thalia ([gwendolyncooper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwendolyncooper/) @ tumblr), I hope I did your usernamesake justice and that I’ve offered a faithful take on Gwen and Ianto’s relationship! Happy holidays and best wishes for the new year!
> 
> Thank you so much to the amazing Elle ([virtualsilver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/virtualsilver)/this-is-quite-homoerotic @ tumblr) for betaing this fic (especially on such short notice)! Your help was invaluable! Remaining errors are all mine.


End file.
